2002 (TU)
Events * Caestus Pax announces that Team Tomorrow will be splitting into T2M-Americas and T2M-Europe. Pax himself, along with Lightning, Apollo Kid, Slag, Splash, Uta "Tremor" Stentz and Byron "Saxon" Graham (among others), will be forming T2MEu, based out of Venice, while Montoya-Bernal, Psyche, Jennifer "Slider" Landers, Ana Graça Texeira and Pualani "Pele" Kapunani will comprise the Mexico City-based T2MAm. Ragnarockette and Shadow Artist will remain members-in-training.Aberrant: Unknown book, p. XX * Project Utopia launches Novation Toys, Games and Comics, its licensing division, to compete with (among other things) the DeVries Agency's entry into the action-figure market. Series I action figures include Slag and the Fireman. The first wave of Novation-produced OpCast series includes Team Tomorrow: Protectors and Slag: Hot Metal Fury. * The Triton Foundation stuns the world yet again when it implants the first synthetic pancreas: the first true cure for diabetes. * Professor Monique Brown writes her doctoral dissertation thesis on the use of cognitive dissonance reduction techniques in public-relations management. * The challenger for Mark Anthony Green's Senate seat claims that he used Nixonian tactics against her. * Combining her knowledge of political science, history, and all things nova, Jennifer Portman begins to develop the theory of "sphinxes," who make luminaries such as Vladimir Sierka seem dimwitted in comparison. * DeVries begins its most lucrative contract to date, hiring a nova research team to mining giant Mineral Reserves, Inc. to explore the collection of mineral wealth in hard-to-reach undersea locations. The team discovers and patents a method to extract iron, cobalt, nickel and copper, and DeVries' value skyrockets. The Agency eventually buys out Mineral Reserves. * By spring, Rachel Alinsky is able to graduate MIT having fulfilled the requirements for three Bachelors, three Masters and two Doctoral degrees. She rebuffs Project Utopia's advances, but ends up having a personal meeting with Anna DeVries herself. She later becomes CTO and Director of Research and Development for both the DeVries Agency and DeVries National Tactical Solutions. * Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf owes $20 million to a London bank, but refuses to pay, claiming the interest is un-Islamic. The bank hires elites to extradite Musharraf. General Rashid Qureshi seizes control of the Presidency. * The Team Tomorrow Ladakh Mountain offensive takes place sometime this year. The level of action seen there won't be seen again until the Amp Room debacle in 2015. * The Netherlands, feeling slighted with Project Utopia's decision to base its new Team Tomorrow headquarters in Venice, begins talking to other Scandinavian nations. Eventually, they create Nordlysene in an attempt to rectify Utopia's "bias." * January-early 2005: Most of the world's copper and fiber-optic cables are replaced with advanced optic cable derived from studies of Buendia's eufiber. The new hardware and data transfer protocols are dubbed the OpNet. The OpNet replaces the Internet, standard phone systems and cellular transmissions, allowing for wireless communications from virtually anywhere in the world. It initially boasts a 700% increase in data speed over conventional systems. * The first program to take advantage of the new OpNet by putting itself up for non-time specific viewing and including some interactive elements is Will and Grace. The change allows the show to last two seasons longer than expected. January * An excited posting on the T2M Fan Alert! OpSite mentions that fans will now have two T2Ms to cover. The main T2M headquarters would be in Mexico City, which would also be the headquarters for Team Tomorrow-Americas. The new team, Team Tomorrow-Europe, will be opening its headquarters in Venice. * The DeVries Agency begins recruiting newly-erupted novas, becoming the first "competitor" to Project Utopia. * January 1: London's Millennium Dome reopens as the London Museum of Living History, including an area of extensive documentation on what is already being called "the Nova Age". * January 5: Novation Toys, Games and Comics sends a letter of introduction to store managers announcing its status as Project Utopia's official licensing agent. March * March 30: CNN breaks a sex scandal involving US President Schroer. The scandal involves a six-year homosexual affair. Schroer admits to the affair in a televised address that night. His approval ratings plummet. April * April 20: Team Tomorrow-Europe opens its Venice headquarters. * Spring? ** A disillusioned Shrapnel goes rogue. While in hiding from the Crown's manhunt, she meets fellow disillusioned elite Natalya "Swarm Queen" Dornova, and the two become good friends at the very least. May * The Economist coins the term "India Syndrome" for the tendency in third-world and other pre-industrial cultures to view novas as gods, and particularly to those novas who encourage this attitude. June * André Corbin erupts during the World Cup playoffs. July * T2MEu member Tremor begins raising islands from the sea-floor half a kilometre out from Venice. Within a year, "Nuova Venezia" will reach much of the way to the old city. * July 14: Dr. Andrew Weisman, a DeVries paraphysician, sends Anna DeVries a memo on "centipede syndrome" — the temporary drop in ability the recently erupted face when they start to think about their powers and, like the centipede in the fable, are unsure how to gain conscious control of their gifts. August * August 12: Project Utopia gives its final report on the state of the environment to the UN General Assembly. Team Tomorrow combines cleanup efforts with the introduction of the Zushima macrobe, a genetically engineered organism that will regulate further pollution. With the environment in better shape than at any time in the last hundred years, Utopian scientists estimate a sustainable level of pre-Industrial Revolution air and water quality by 2005. September * September 15: India, China and Pakistan face off over ownership of the Kashmir region. Quick intervention by Team Tomorrow prevents an all-out war, but conflicts with government-sponsored novas and elites occur. Kashmir becomes a demilitarized zone under UN and Project Utopia surveillance. * September 16: Peter Knorr, leader of the baseline mercenary cadre known as the Wolfpack, is the only survivor of his eight-man unit, sent to fight in Kashmir. His teammates are all wiped out by elites within an hour of entering combat, and Knorr only survives because the stress of fighting for his life causes him to erupt. On returning to his native Britain, he visits the London Rashoud facility, subsequently working as an ecological engineer for a few years before joining Team Tomorrow as "Thorn." October * Melissa Weatherby is appointed Opposition whip. * October 13: Mexico City is rocked by an earthquake in the early afternoon, but T2M-Americas saves literally hundreds of lives. Firefly's ability to project her consciousness through walls comes in handy in locating survivors. Later this year, she will be useful when a religious fanatic detonates a bomb in a Monaco casino. * October 31: "The Laws of the Unholy Might of The Astaroth" are first posted to the "Dark Altar" OpSite ReignofEvil.com. November * November 21: Corporations Viacom and Microsoft announce their merger into an enormous corporate entity to be called ViaSoft. * Time'' Magazine'' details the ViaSoft merger, and the reasons behind it. December * In the wake of Utopia's being granted oversight of Kashmir, Covert Action News reports on "Utopia's Real Agenda Revisited". The monitoring facilities in Kashmir would allow Utopia to watch India and China — the two largest armies, and largest official nova military forces, on the planet — and the southern parts of the RusCon. The article's author even speculates that Utopia may have manipulated China into taking an interest in Kashmir (which they never had before). * December 4: A subway bombing in Tokyo brings attention to a hybrid of Shinto and Buddhist beliefs called Kamisama Buddhism. Although the sect professes belief in nonviolence, three fanatics are charged with the bombing. The sect's leader, nova guru Bodhisattva Masato, claims no knowledge of the attack. * December 31: Æon Society census reports approximately 2500 known novas in the world population. References Category:Trinity Universe timeline